Who Is It Going To Be This Time, I Wonder
by JeanBlaze
Summary: The Doctor has just said goodbye to River Song, knowing that he will never cross paths with her ever again. In his alone time in the TARDIS, he reminiscences about his recent companions. Relives the good moments, remembers the bad... but never forgets the important lessons they all taught him as he prepares himself for the next adventure. (ONE SHOT)


**A/N: My first Doctor Who story! Anyways, this is my small tribute to all the companions of new-Who. I know our fandom is very divided when it comes to the companions. There is major love AND major hate for a few of them, but I feel everyone had an important part to play in the Doctor's life. So I would very much appreciate it if you guys refrain from posting companion-related hate in the review section. Constructive criticism for my writing, on the other hand, is very much welcome. I would love it if you all left a review and let me know what you thought about this one-shot.**

 **Happy reading :)**

 **XXX**

The Doctor closes the doors behind him with a sigh.

Twenty-four years he spent with River Song. Twenty-four years of insane adventures, both outdoors… and indoors. The TARDIS rang her bells teasingly as a quick blush worked its way across his face. But as their time together came to an end, it became difficult for the Doctor to finally leave her at her doorstep. She was all smiles and kisses, obviously, but he knew; he knew what was waiting for her in the Library. He knew that she would never step back in through those doors ever again.

And it hurt. Since when did his hearts ache so much when someone walked out of those blue doors?

He thought about the days when he was young, when he used to prance around the universe, wearing silly scarves and decorative vegetables, jumping from planet to planet, picking up people from here, dropping them off there… he never really thought much about it that time. Hell, he even tried to kill one of them in his regeneration-addled state.

But something had changed… he thought, flipping a few buttons here, turning a few knobs there. The TARDIS wheeeed thoughtfully, as if trying to answer his question.

"The war… I guess that's where it began" he said out loud.

He had destroyed his own people. Well he actually hadn't, but at that time he thought he had. It was all timey-wimey, he would have said at one point.

He had lost everything, so he came to the only place in the whole wide mysterious universe that sort of felt like home to him – the level 5 planet called Earth. With a new face, but the same old pain and anger from his previous self, he had set out to live his life of solitude as the last Timelord alive.

That's when he met her – Rose.

"Ahhh, Rose" The Doctor said, "She was always so straight-forward and a tiny bit silly, wasn't she?"

The innocent, simple-minded Rose Tyler. Never questioned him, never doubted him, always following him where ever he went. Even going to the extent of looking into the heart of the TARDIS to get back to him. But it was not that unwavering loyalty that thawed his frozen hearts, it was the light she exuded. That's what the Doctor, even after all these years, associated Rose with – light. She showed him that the universe was still a good place, showed him the silver-lining in the darkest nebulas of reality. That something new and more beautiful could be born from tragedy. Showed him it was okay to dish out a few moves once in a while.

This is what he held onto when he regenerated. It transformed him, made him more confident.

"In retrospect, I think arrogance is a better word. Don't you?"

The TARDIS bleeps her confirmation.

Not to forget his vanity. But boy he was happy that time, yes he was. No longer did he cowl in the shadows – he strutted across the universe, holding his head high, wearing the title of "The Oncoming Storm" with pride. He was the hero in her eyes… and he decided to become the Hero of the Universe just to prove her right… just because he could. And through it all, Rose Tyler shone her brilliant light. The light that made him fall in…

"I should probably stop myself right there" he sighed, "Don't see why I should say it out loud after all these centuries"

This made his parting with her difficult. The luminous Rose Tyler had to leave… just like everyone before her. And it hurt. His caring, attached, emotional self couldn't really handle it well that time.

The second parting with her hadn't been easy either. But there was a difference now. This time, he knew it was the right thing to do. As wonderful and adventurous as she was, the Doctor knew she wanted to settle in someday. She would've wanted a quiet life… a family even. And that was something he could never give her. It ripped his hearts to leave her with the human version of him in the parallel world. But that was what she truly deserved.

Sometimes, the Doctor wondered. How was she doing there? Is she happy? Is his Metacrisis self as good as she hoped he would be?

The Doctor rarely admits it, even to himself, that every time he walks out the doors, his eyes subconsciously hunt for two words hidden in the madness of space and time – Bad Wolf. He knew those words would bring nothing but disaster with them. However, he wished to see them once, to see her once. Just once, to see with his own eyes, the life Rose Tyler, the Defender of the Earth, made for herself, to see her happy. He had a duty of care afterall.

Rose's departure had stirred a storm… and just like every storm, it blew something new into his life.

Martha Jones.

The lovely, intelligent Martha Jones. She wasn't like Rose. Martha challenged him, questioned him. She helped when she believed he was right, but did not hesitate to knock some sense into him when she knew in her bones he was wrong. And above all, Martha was patient and kind.

"The Doctor's doctor" he smiled to himself.

Martha nursed the wounds Rose's absence had left on him, never complaining, always understanding.

"But I wasn't entirely fair to her"

The Doctor always knew about the crush Martha had on him. And he fuelled it, with his clever smiles and knowing winks. He didn't mean to hurt her, but at that time, he was too blind to see that he was doing exactly that. He asked and asked of her, he asked her to come along with him for one trip… then made the one many. He asked her to save him from the burning sun, asked her to protect him when he locked away his own mind, knowing that Martha wouldn't stop giving. And being the brave girl Martha was, she walked the embers with her head held high, all the while hoping that he would look at her the way she looked at him.

And then he asked once more – asked her to be his champion in the year that never was. He had no right to ask, but he did. The giving, compassionate Martha Jones did what she always did. She gave. One whole year, a year that was forgotten, she trudged through a desolate planet, telling tales of the man she loved. And with every word she spoke, she began to understand that he wouldn't give her the one thing she wanted him to.

And so, she chose to leave. The Doctor never held it against her. As a matter of fact, he admired her for that. Admired her strength to leave behind what was eating away at her, even though it was enticingly wrapped in adventure and excitement.

But after that year, Martha was never the same. Her kindness had a steely edge to it now and it pained him to see that. She was still the doctor he cared so deeply about, but she also became a calculating soldier. Her time with the Doctor had made her see the darkness in the world, and she transformed, still compassionate yet ruthless when she had to be. He did this to her, he had thought, and he swore to fix it.

"Except, like always, Martha never really needed my help" the Doctor chuckled.

Martha found her own way in the end. With Mickey Smith nonetheless! The last time he saw her, she was being shot at by Sontarans, but she and Mickey were happy.

"Maybe I should stop by sometime with lasagne" However, after a pause, he added, "Probably not. Mickey would laugh his head off when he sees my hair" He tugged at his greying locks absent-mindedly while the TARDIS hummed with what sounded like amusement.

"Good life she has, Martha Jones"

Another friend gone, another hole in his chest. He travelled alone for a while… he even tricked himself into thinking that he enjoyed it. But that didn't last for long. And like destiny, she stormed into his long, long life – Donna Noble.

Except, it was more like she stormed _back_ into his life.

The first time he met Donna, the best temp from Chiswick with a typing speed of 100 words per minute, was on her wedding day.

"I have rarely been so surprised… and that's saying something"

That day, the Doctor saved the human race from the Racnoss, but it was Donna who did the real saving – she saved him from himself. If it hadn't been for her, he would have died that day. And that was what probably scared her and she turned down the offer to travel with him.

However, a year later, she found him.

"She found me!" the Doctor exclaimed, "I still can't believe that she actually found me"

The TARDIS's response rang in the console room.

"Yes, yes, Dalek Caan was pulling the strings, but still, she found me!"

And what a time they had! The Doctor and Donna, painting the universe red, she was his Partner in Crime. She was there with him in one of his most difficult time's in Pompeii, together they saved an entire race from slavery, solved the mystery of the disappearance of Agatha Christie… she was brilliant, fantastic, smart and sassy and most of all – she was his best friend!

After the heartbreak with Rose and the complications with Martha, Donna was a breath of fresh air in his life. Her no nonsense attitude, the balanced head she had on her smart-aleck shoulders freed the Doctor and reminded him why he loved travelling in the first place – not to be a hero, not to impress women but to explore… to learn and see the marvels of the universe. To unravel the mysteries hidden in the alcoves of long forgotten planets and help out whenever and wherever he can.

And the fantastic Donna Noble kept up with him the whole time. With him, she grew too – the unconfident young woman became a fearless adventurer. No more did she walked with stooped shoulders, surrounded by an air of ill-disguised self-pity – her gait became more purposeful, her confidence increased by leaps and bounds and she was born anew. After messing up the lives of so many people before, the Doctor felt a swell of relief and a hint of pride; he doesn't wreck everything afterall, he had thought.

And then, Donna Noble became even more fantastic.

"Instantaneous biological Metacrisis" the Doctor smiled, as he followed Donna's engraved name spinning away at the top of the console.

Destiny played her cards. Donna Noble became the most important woman in all of creation. The spunky Donna Noble with the mind of the Timelord. She had ideas that the collective minds of his entire race couldn't come up with on adrenaline. She even figured out to fix his chameleon circuit!

The TARDIS bleeped a warning.

"Yes, yes. I know. You don't want to be fixed. You probably like your blue look more than me"

But in the end, she had to go too. In probably the cruellest way possible. He had to make his best mate forget him just to keep her alive… and it was probably the most difficult thing he had ever done in his long, long life. But that was not what hurt him the most.

"She had to forget how amazing she was" the Doctor sighed.

Everything she had become, everything she had learnt, all the faith she had gathered in herself, Donna Noble had to lose all that. Donna would never remember that she had a blinding radiance, a radiance that had saved him countless times.

But she would be alive. She would live a happy, normal life. The Doctor found a small comfort in that.

Being alone took a heavy toll on him, though. After Donna had to leave, he was never really the same. He became withdrawn, now afraid to form new bonds. He painfully taught himself to enjoy his isolation. But that didn't work out very well for him, either.

"So much arrogance" the Doctor said, "Looking back, I barely recognise myself"

When he saved the universe once more from the destruction of the Time War, it was time to regenerate again, to start afresh. But somehow, his subconscious remembered how much he cared… and remembered the pain associated with it. And so he became aloof and unattached. He decided being alone was not a bad thing afterall.

But that didn't last long. Amelia Pond made sure of that.

"Ah! The Ponds!" the Doctor said. In response, the screen near him flickered to life, showing a picture of the beaming Amy Pond with her arms wrapped around Rory.

Nothing, no one in the Doctor's impossibly long life had ever tethered him to a place, well… except the Girl Who Waited. The brave, courageous Amelia Pond, who fought the world, fought the universe and every logic in it, just to keep his memory alive. How could he not keep coming back to that?

The Doctor was an old man with a young face at that time – feared by the entire universe, thanks to the feats of his previous self, and was determined never to get attached again. He had convinced himself that he was better off alone. But Amy changed that.

"She gave me a family to care for"

Amy not only travelled with him and shoved into his rusty old head the importance of friends and companionship, but also brought into his life two magnificent people to prove her point. Rory Williams, the Last Centurion, the shy, quiet man with a level head on kind shoulders and Melody Pond, better known as River Song, the woman who married him… or as he more fondly liked to call her – Hell in High Heels.

Him and the Ponds. What adventures they had! They fought pirates and saved dinosaurs, saved the whole of reality from collapsing as well. And through it all, the Doctor eased, somewhat into family life. And with every passing moment, he grew more and more fond of them all.

Now that is not to say their lives were not complicated. The life of the Ponds was full of paradoxes and anomalies, time lines that never existed, memories of things that never happened. They were kidnapped, tortured, put into a box, made to live for 2000 years in hiding, forced to pretend to not recognise the ones they loved to protect the flow of time, but still, somehow, through it all, Amy Pond stayed by his side and became his lighthouse, became the person he sought solace in when he saw darkness everywhere else. The Doctor never truly understood why they stood by him the way they did; afterall, all the impossibilities in their lives were because of him, even if they never blamed him for it. But, that was probably why he loved them so much as well – they saw the best in him, even though they had every reason to hate him.

In the long years of travelling with the Ponds, the Doctor watched them grow. He watched his little, spunky Amelia Pond grow from a flirting, spontaneous, and a tad bit reckless young girl into a wise, collected, impressive woman who had the wits to put even his own pompous old ego in its rightful place. All her experiences made her tough, definitely, but also made her more compassionate and loving.

But in the end, it was love that tore her away from him.

The Doctor didn't hate Amelia for her decision, nor did he blame Rory for it; how could he? The love that they had for each other was something he cherished very deeply. However, that didn't make her departure any easy for him. He had grown too attached, and the hole Amy and Rory left in his life was too much to bear.

True, he had eventually moved on, found new corners to explore, more mysteries to solve, but he never really forgot his little Amelia Pond. It was a memory that stayed with him till the moment he regenerated once more. And it will always be a story he will look back at when he feels low.

After this point, however, he hits a dead end. The TARDIS flashes her lights and screeches indignantly.

"One picture! Is that too much to ask?" the Doctor said, "I just want to know what she looks like!"

He was referring to Clara Oswald, of course. The Impossible Girl… and also, The Girl He Couldn't Remember.

He had very vague memories of Clara, well not memories exactly. He only remembered events. He remembered that Clara swayed into his life as a mystery. She brought excitement and adventure when he was lost and angry. He remembered that she saved his life in Trenzalore and he also remembered that she was the one who pleaded with the Timelords to grant him another regeneration cycle. He remembered a dinosaur in Victorian London, Robin Hood, and people from a universe with only two dimensions. He even remembered that she once had a boyfriend who was a PE teacher.

But he didn't remember anything _about_ her. Nothing about the colour of her eyes, or her favourite place in the universe. He did, however, remember that he went too far for her, which is why he made the decision to make her forget him… and also remembered that she made that decision back fire on him. The TARDIS had also erased every visual and voice records of her from the database, to protect his decision. He sometimes got frustrated and demanded her to show him one glimpse of his previous companion, but the old girl never budged.

All that was left of Clara Oswald was a song, a song that was neither happy nor sad. The song offered him no insight into who Clara was, gave him no clue as to what she had told him in the Cloisters. Clara remained a mystery to him, exactly the way she was a mystery to him when they first met.

"Looks like she will always and forever be the Impossible Girl" the Doctor chuckled.

There was one thing though. Even though he didn't remember Clara, he remembered the lesson he learnt when he said goodbye to her. Clara Oswald taught him the importance of letting go. Things become precious only when you lose them. He had learnt that now, the hard way, at the expense of a woman he was sure was nothing less than fantastic.

The Doctor would forever be thankful to all the people who touched his life in every way big and small. He would keep the lessons they taught him close to his hearts.

But now, it was time to begin something new, filled with radiant possibilities.

He set the time roughly to the 21st Century, but the exact date and location, he left it to his dedicated partner. The TARDIS always took him to the right spot. He never understood how she did it, but he was thankful for it. She wheezed and groaned her way through the time vortex, looking for the right moment to land, looking for the right moment to start the next chapter.

"Who is it going to be this time, I wonder?"


End file.
